ALBUMWhen It's All Over We Still Have to Clear Up (Bonus Track Version)Snow Patrol
ALBUMSongs for Polarbears (Bonus Track Version)Snow Patrol
Snow Patrol's Popular Music Videos
What If This Is All The Love You Ever Get?
Snow Patrol
Empress
Snow Patrol
Breaking In New Shoes
Snow Patrol
Run
Snow Patrol
First Week Of Term
Snow Patrol
Don't Give In
Snow Patrol
Called Out In the Dark
Snow Patrol
Open Your Eyes
Snow Patrol
Empress (Band Version)
Snow Patrol
Jacknife Lee Studio Safari
Snow Patrol
Artist Playlists
Snow Patrol Essentials
Northern Ireland's indie rock underdogs rose to stadium-sized heights.
Snow Patrol: Influences
A diverse alt-rock mix informs the Irish band's sound.
Snow Patrol: Chill
Lean back and relax with some of their mellowest cuts.
Artist Biography
Snow Patrol’s grandiose rock ballads give melody and mood to love’s simple joys and tragic endings—the perfect soundtrack to both poignant onscreen moments and listeners’ own romantic scenes. While the UK band seemed to follow in Coldplay’s gentle footsteps, they began honing their craft in 1994, when Northern Ireland mates Gary Lightbody and Mark McClelland began writing songs together at Scotland’s University of Dundee. The local indie scene informed the group’s early forays into dissonant rock and the earnest pop, two styles that cohered on Snow Patrol’s scrappy first album, 1998’s Songs for Polar Bears. After inviting Nathan Connolly to join on lead guitar and recruiting producer Jacknife Lee for their 2003 major-label debut Final Straw, the band upped the epic quotient, swathing Lightbody’s lullaby croon in atmosphere-building effects (“How to Be Dead”) and swelling string crescendos (“Run”). Their tear-stained anthems, like the Grammy-nominated “Chasing Cars,” came to define major turning points on TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy and One Tree Hill. But even through a few lineup shifts and some agonizing bouts of writer’s block, the band’s most stirring works have always been their most exploratory. That applies to both sound—play the disco-kissed “Called Out In the Dark” or multi-movement rock symphony “The Lightning Strike”—and Lightbody’s continual soul-searching. Ultimately, the singer’s heart-wrenching confessions are as therapeutic for him as they are for the rest of us.